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Population structure of the Trakehner Horse breed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

R. Teegen ,
C. Edel  and
G. Thaller
R. Teegen*
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Breeding and Husbandry, Christian-Albrechts-University, D-24118 Kiel, Germany
C. Edel
Affiliation:
Bavarian State Research Centre for Agriculture, Institute of Animal Breeding, D-85580 Grub, Germany
G. Thaller
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Breeding and Husbandry, Christian-Albrechts-University, D-24118 Kiel, Germany
*
E-mail: rteegen@tierzucht.uni-kiel.de
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Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the population structure of the Trakehner Horse breed. A total of 13 793 pedigree records were used for analysing the active breeding population and their ancestors dating back to 1950. Ancestors that were born before 1950 were called as base animals. The average generation interval was calculated as 10.2 years. The effective population size (Ne) was estimated by the increase in average year-wise inbreeding coefficient and average coancestry, respectively. Two methods were applied to estimate the effective population size: 1. Numerator-relationship-matrix (NRM), which did not consider missing ancestries. 2. Uncertain-parentage-matrix (UPM), which considered a probabilistic correction for unknown ancestors. There were no major differences between these two methods with respect to the rate of increase in inbreeding although the global levels using the UPM method were observed to be higher. Estimates for the inbreeding coefficients and the average coancestries varied little between both methods. The estimates of the effective population size per generation based on the rate of inbreeding ranged from 169 (NRM) to 150 (UPM) and 158 (NRM) to 144 (UPM) calculated by the average coancestry. From the early 1990s onwards, a strong increase in the rate of inbreeding was observed. This may be due to an increasing variance of the family size of sires and may be interpreted as a consequence of the growing use of artificial insemination. Analysing coancestries within and between the centrally managed regional breeding societies in Germany further revealed the Trakehner horse breed to be a genetically fragmented population with a main partition corresponding to formerly divided East and West Germany. The average rate of gene contributions (Thoroughbred (xx), Arab Horse breed (ox)) to the defined actual breeding population was calculated to be 22.3% xx-genes and 11.7% ox-genes.

Keywords

generation intervaleffective population sizeinbreeding coefficientcoancestrycontribution of other breeds
Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 6 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Animal Consortium 2008

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